Active Member

I bought a pair of KEF ceiling mount Ci 130Q speakers today. Just to check they sound OK before cutting holes in my ceiling I connected them up 'loose' (i.e. as they come, out of the box) to my amplifier.

The problem is, they seem to have virtually no bass. They have roughly the same amount of bass as my Sony travel alarm, which has 1" speakers. I've heard them in a shop and they had quite decent bass there, as I remember.

Surely this can't be right? The spec quotes 75Hz-20kHz +-3dB. Possibly installing them would result in more bass (due to the ceiling void) but I can't imagine it making a huge difference.

Active Member

John, I guess you're right that the ceiling void will change the sound, but it just seems hard to believe that it's going to make a huge difference, especially as the celing void in this room is quite a large volume (about 6 inches deep and 13 ft x 15ft).

I would have thought 75Hz is reasonably low - not really deep bass, but bass all the same. At the moment there just doesn't seem to be anything resembling bass at all. You even notice the lack of bass in dialogue with male voices.

I thought about getting a (REL) sub, but I live in a flat with plasterboard party walls and no soundproofing, and I'm worried that it might annoy my neighbours. Also my main speakers (Proac Studio 125s) go pretty low anyway, and I'd rather avoid using bass management, so I'm not sure a sub would be the answer.

As I said, when I listened to the Kefs in a shop, the bass sounded fine.

Guest

with no box the back wave of the driver is out of phase with the front wave - this cancels the sound, causing no bass. When you mount the speaker in the ceiling there is no chance of the waves cancelling each other out - bass how it should be.

To get an idea of how they'll sound try listening side on. seriously....